Reconoissance
by Lady M28
Summary: Spec fic based on 1x09 episode description. Longer summary inside. ONESHOT! COMPLETE!


**Summary** - the 1x09 ep description says that "Francis learns of the dark prophecy, but it does not disuade his desire to marry Mary." This is my attempt to see how close I get to what happens.

**AN** - I want to say a very appreciative thank you to **justcallmesmitty** who provided amazing beta skills for this piece, she has been invaluable, and it wouldn't be half as good had she not helped me out. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

**Disclaimer** - I own nothing, I just like to play.

**Reconoissance** - (Middle French)

I lie back on the couch as early morning light fills my rooms. It reminds me of a happy, carefree time not that long ago, but which seems an eternity away. It's difficult to even think about those halcyon days when we thought we had all the time in the world. We were in our own world, having no idea that something was going to be catapulted in to blow it all to shreds. How naive I now feel thinking I could have everything - my country and my love. I still have my country, but it feels so much more hollow now.

I haven't slept, not that this is a rare occurrance these days, for it is not. I actually can't remember the last time I felt rested. I haven't slept soundly since she left, and before that I was a bit tired out of choice; the one that lovers make as they choose to whisper in the dark, touch, kiss and explore rather than surrender to dreams. I haven't slept since she was brought back either. Knowing she willingly left, and very unwillingly returned pains me more than I can possibly express to her. Just the day prior, I - we - had been the happiest I can ever remember, and then she was gone without explanation, telling me to remember she would always love me. As if that matters when all she left was a bleeding void in the shape of my heart.

Mother keeps offering for Nostradamus to make me a sleeping potion, but that is out of the question. Those two set all this in motion, taking from me the one thing that matters besides my duty. My one joy.

And while I want to continue screaming at whatever gods might listen to my anger, I think it's time for a different approach. I've yelled and screamed till my voice is hoarse. It has achieved nothing, as she has just shut down and retreated inside herself. Clearly that's not the approach to take. Besides that, I don't really want to yell at her - I take no joy in it. And yelling isn't going to get me where I want us to be - on a path to finding our way back to where we truly belong, as friends, confidants and lovers. She keeps standing firm, saying she did it for me - to save me. She keeps forgetting, she never asked if I wanted to be saved.

Perhaps it's time to try seduction. I know she loves me, and has convinced herself that she did the right thing due to that love, it's time to use that love for a different purpose. It's time to try to find that want and need for one another which we awakened in the days following the siege. It's time to begin to seize the battlements.

I get up, comb my hair, brush my beard, give myself a bit of a wash, and put on a fresh tunic. Seduction isn't going to work if I smell like someone who is wallowing in his pain, which I have been. Too much wine, too few baths, too much time on a horse searching for a clue and not bothering to clean up after. I don't look my best, my eyes still visibly bloodshot, but I look a good deal better than I did ten minutes ago.

Ever mindful of the chateau's penchant for gossip - and her reputation - not that she cared about it as she rode away from me with my brother - I take a well-traveled route through the old stone passages from my rooms to hers, discovered during those days of ignorant bliss before she fled. Memories flood back of that time, how we found the route together, how it took much longer than it should have since we both had to stop every few feet because we missed the other's skin and lips and touch. How it seemed unnatural to be away from the other even for a few moments.

When I get to the door to her rooms, I hesitate, hearing nothing. I'm unsure how I will be received. Actually, I know how I will be received, she's going to ask me to leave, and I'm going to ignore her wishes. Because while I hear the words coming out of her mouth, they don't match what her eyes are saying, they don't match her what her body conveys. Those speak of need and want and pain - feelings I've become far too familiar with. Perhaps she doesn't realize that she keeps her hands firmly clasped whenever she's around me now, as if they know their natural state of being is reaching for me, touching me, holding me.

"Clarissa?" she calls out softly, hearing the door to the passageway creak. I don't answer, at first, my boots against the stones should belie woman's presence.

"No," I answer. "I'm not Clarissa and I'm not sure who she is, either," I keep my tone gentle and very even, as if speaking to a frightened young colt. I hear her moving in the bed.

"But not too long ago you came to me after a night of not being able to sleep, on a morning much like this one," I continue, coming into view around the post of her bed. "You were concerned that my actions might have cost me my life, when all I had known was that the person who was and is my life was in danger and I had to do something. So I thought I would use our route through the passages and come to share my thoughts with you," I finish, sitting on the edge of her bed. She has moved to the head of the bed, knees pulled up tightly against her body, her eyes wide. Perhaps it is the chilly turn the weather has taken, but the beautiful nightdresses which hugged her curves that I grew so fond of are nothing like the long-sleeved, high-necked dress she's now wearing. It reminds me of the nightdresses my elderly minder wore when I was a small child. It's no less armor than the wide-skirted dresses she now wears to try to force me to keep physical distance from her.

"You shouldn't be here," she sharply replies.

"Actually, that's where you're wrong," I say, keeping my tone light. Realizing the room is cold, the fire having died down during the night, I go to tend it. "This is the only place I should be, the only place I want to be," I continue, turning the embers. "Everything that truly means anything to me, everything that makes _my_ life richer, happy and wonderful is right here in this room - how could I be anywhere else?" I finish, pulling wood from the box and building the fire till it is roaring, filling the rooms with warmth.

"Francis," she states firmly, her body still coiled in on itself, "I told you..."

"Yes," I agree, interrupting and moving to sit back upon the bed. "Your beautiful mouth has told me many things," I say laying on my side, reaching out to touch her soft lips which I so adore. "They have told me many things - that you don't want to be with me anymore, that you don't want to marry me any longer, that you don't want to be the cause of my death. See? I have been listening to all the things coming out of your mouth," I finish with a small smile, my finger brushing back and forth over her lower lip.

"If you've been listening, then I don't understand why you're here," she replies, trying to move away from me, her hand coming up to interrupt the movements of my finger, her head cocking to the side.

"Because," I return, my smile widening, my finger tapping her lip, my thumb wrapping around her hand, not letting it go, "that's not the only part of you that I'm listening to."

The confusion on her face is endearing - she really doesn't realize how much her eyes give away. Her love, her fear, her misery. I sit up, finding my way under her voluminous nightdress, hooking my hand around her ankle to pull her toward me. I take one of her hands in mine, tracing circles on the palm and mirroring the circling with a finger of the other around the knob of her ankle.

"You see," I begin, she jerks her ankle and hand away, I pull them back more firmly, "the messages conveyed by your mouth and your eyes are completely contradictory. Your mouth says no," I continue, moving my hand out of hers to trace her full lips, "but your eyes are screaming yes. And I'm choosing to listen to your eyes."

Her eyes hooded, giving away her desire, flicking toward my lips, her hands coming up to try to push against my chest. "What do they say?" she rushes out, her voice hitching, her eyes becoming wide - frightened even - rapt on my face.

"Well," I return, a smile pulling as I realize I have her full attention, my thumb pulling at the side of her mouth as it moves to ghost along her jaw, the fingers of my other hand trail up her calf, "do you mean since you've returned or right now?" I murmur right into her ear, my nose burying in her fragrant hair.

"Since I've returned?" she breathes, her voice hitching; she tries to fold her legs underneath herself and move her hips away from me, but I catch part of the wide nightdress under my thigh, pinning her in place.

"That you're just as miserable in this forced separation you've imposed upon us as I am, " I reply, sharply nipping her earlobe, drawing a gasp from her. Her face shifts toward mine as I blow on her lobe to soothe the hurt.

"_Francis_," she half moans, half sharply rebukes. The lower half of her body where my fingers continue to glide up and down her legs seems unable to make up its mind if it wants to flee or open to me. She leans into my touch, then tenses again, trying to jerk away.

"Yes," I nod, starting to sprinkle kisses along her jaw, feeling it tense, "what do you want of me?" I finish with a whisper, my lips just touching the edge of hers.

"We...our union...," she tries to get out, her face awash in conflicting emotions, her thoughts appearing scattered.

"Our union is what?" I murmur, brushing my hand up her bare arm, kissing her closed eyes. "Is wonderful? Is beautiful?" I ask, nuzzling her nose, settling at the other side of her mouth.

She sighs, her body softening, molding itself to mine - finally giving in to what it wants. Words aren't needed anymore.

I make a line of small pecks, aligning our mouths, nipping softly, lowering us onto the bed. She begins to respond - her lips softening on mine, kissing me back, her hands softly clasping my sides. Her hips push up into my growing hardness. I slide my tongue against her lower lip, asking, and after a moment her lips part; gaining entry, my tongue brushes her teeth, my hand strokes her jaw, requesting it soften - and when it does - my tongue reaches out to touch hers lightly before I pull back, sucking her upper lip into my mouth.

She makes a sound that is between a sigh and a moan, and I move back to tangle my tongue with hers, her breath is a bit sour - but I could not care less. My other hand moves to stroke up and down on the outside of her firm breast, my thumb brushing her already stiffened tip, causing her hips to jerk into mine, and me to grunt and suck her bottom lip into my mouth, my teeth raking down to pull it loose. The fabric of her nightdressshifts, the peak of her breast popping out from where a button is undone - a tiny chink in her armor. I pinch it, then roll it between my fingers, eliciting a deep moan from her.

I look down at her - flushed and so incredibly beautiful. My Mary. The one only I get to see.

I move back to the edge of her mouth, kissing along her jaw, down the side of her neck, one hand following the path of my lips, the other pulling at her hardened nipple. She gasps out my name, one hand tightly grasping onto my back, fingers digging into my skin, the other running through my hair, one leg hooking around mine. This dance is so familiar, each of us seeking to push one another to that wonderfully familiar place - instinct really.

She kisses just below my ear, down into my beard, just underneath my jaw, causing me to groan out her name. I move to get a hand under her nightdress, skimming the soft skin of her leg, she stiffens suddenly beneath me, unhooking her leg, letting it fall to the bed.

"Francis," she chokes out, pushing against me with one hand, "no...please...no..."

"Mary," I breathe, pulling back from the kiss, resting my forehead against hers. I feel the matched fast, shallow breaths of both our bodies; I don't move off her. I don't move at all. "Mary," I repeat, a coax in my voice, prompting her to open her eyes, slowly. She looks foggy and drugged.

"We can't do this," she replies, her voice breaking, hands pushing harder against my chest, her body stiffening beneath mine.

"Do what?" I ask. "Love each other? Want each other? Be together?" I wait a few moments for an answer which doesn't come, just squirming as she tries to free herself, before continuing softly, "I will never take anything from you which you do not freely give. You know that."

"I sacrificed everything so you would be safe," she cries out, the heal of her hand coming up to rub tears away.

"I never asked you to make that choice," I return calmly, rolling off her, helping her sit up before moving to the foot of the bed.

"You didn't have to, you still don't," she says with a hiccup, turning her face away, then turning it back, her chin jutting out with the determination and fire that I so love in her. "I can't bear even the thought of holding your dead body like I held Aylee's - to think we end up with nothing we want, no children, alone, one of us dead not long from now. I'm not even sure that's a choice."

"It _is_ a choice," I cut in, "one which you gave no say in!"

"No!" She replies sharply, her voice breaking, tears beginning to leak out if her eyes. "If you're asking me to say I can live with knowing I have a hand in your death, I can't," she continues with a keening wail, her hand coming to her mouth. "I choose to know you're alive, that you're finding happiness again, even if it's not with me."

"_You_ are my happiness!" I return emphatically.

"You were happy with Olivia once," she says, turning her head away, hiding her expressive eyes. "You loved her."

"So that's what you want?" I shoot back, bitterness creeping into my voice. "For me to marry someone else? Love someone else? Have children with someone else?"

Her head whips toward me, eyes filled with tears and pain, giving away everything.

"Well, good, at least we can agree on one thing," I continue. "I don't belong with Olivia, or any other woman you or my mother can find for me. I choose you, for however long we have."

She lets out a whimpering, "No!"

"_Yes_," I return sharply. "I love you - and I know you love me," I continue much more softly, pulling out a handkerchief, taking her face in my hand, gently wiping her cheeks, softly kissing her mouth, she doesn't try to push me away this time, instead her small hand seeks it's home, wrapping around mine. "And while I haven't yet figured out how it's going to happen, we are going to find a way to be happy again. Both of us. I told you when I asked you to marry me that I would both love you and fight with you till the day I die, and I still mean to keep that promise," I finish - I know I'm causing her more pain by bringing up the possibility of my death which she has done so much to prevent, her eyes conveying as much - but I'm not shying away from the subject, I'm done shying away from anything.

"No," she says again, sniffling, with an emphatic shake of her head.

"Yes," I nod, my tone softening, "because in you I found everything I could ever want," I keep going, "everything I thought I would never have. A person to love and laugh with, but also someone with whom I can share my burdens, who understands them, and who can share hers with me.

"I'm not giving up on us, because, I, Francis, choose you, Mary," I say, getting up off the bed, reluctantly letting go of her hand. "I'm not letting you give up either," I finish, turning on my heel and retreating to where I came from.

I will return, of that she can be assured. Not all battles are won through direct assault, this was but my opening bid - a scouting expedition - her defenses are most definitely soft. Flanking, frontal assaults, hit-and-run tactics, surprise attacks; she will experience them all.

Hers will not be the last word.

FIN

**Endnote** -The title is the Middle French spelling of reconnaissance, and would have been the spelling during the time Reign is set.

Also, this was a bit of a bitch to write. It started in second person, past tense, Mary's POV, and then I got very stuck, could not make it work. It wasn't really writers block, per se, more I couldn't figure out how to get what I wanted on the page. So I put it away and didn't think about it for around a week. Then I got an epiphany, martial metaphors and Francis, suddenly it began to work.

Image by sourburst fanforum.

Thanks for reading, reviews & comments are greatly appreciated.


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